I May Be a Virtual Youtuber, but I Still Go to Work - Chapter 124

The formal title of this training I’m conducting is ‘Dealing with Trolls’.

But don’t let the rather bland title fool you; if you peek into what’s actually happening during the session, you’d worry for the mental state of the members—things can get quite brutal.

You might wonder why we even need this training if the managers block all the nasty chats anyway.

Even with a watchful manager, there are still plenty of trolls who slip through the cracks with their malice.

Ambiguous chats can be particularly tricky since they can’t be blocked immediately and require a full history search—which means the streamer might be reading the chat in the meantime.

And when those chats pop up, they spark fireworks in my head and send my back aching, making it pretty pointless to blind the chat in that moment.

So to prevent this, the goal of my training is to drop a little bit of Tabasco jalapeño sauce on each of their lips and see how they react.

Looking back at the first training session roughly a year and some months ago…

— “I guess I should come back later since I’ll lose anyway.”

— “Are we going for the stingy meta? Is ‘diamond’ just for show?”

— “Hey!”

— “I feel like getting shotgunned in a stone pot.”

— “Just shove it in there, come on!”

— “Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine…”

— “Hey!”

— “Are you perhaps completing a puzzle with items? Haha, so colorful and pretty!”

— “Even when you explain, you’re not eating it up, huh, sigh…”

— “Getting mad isn’t my job, haha.”

— “Hey, respond!”

— “Even Komari is slowly becoming useless, haha.”

“Seriously, if you don’t want to see this, just get out! Uselessness is what it is, you idiot.”

By now, Komari has grown a bit used to streaming, and viewers sometimes appreciate her fiery personality, allowing her to compromise and express genuine anger now and then.

But in the early streams, she held back a lot to avoid getting angry.

The reason? She unleashed a barrage of curses in my chat multiple times during my training on dealing with trolls.

Even though I knew it was me sending those nasty chats during the mock streams, she couldn’t see my face, only the chat, and that made it impossible for her to keep her cool.

Because of this, I focused more on Rain and Komari rather than Maru, who’s a bit more sensitive and would be in tears at the drop of a hat.

Most of the time, when a streamer cries over bad chats, fans will help clean it up, but if they just start cursing back or want to pick a fight, it turns into a full-blown war.

You might think, “Why should I get in trouble for saying something when the chat was being rude?”

But that’s the Internet for you, where inciting drama out of anything is a specialty.

Better to be cautious ahead of time.

That’s why it’s best to keep swearing to a minimum and, when you do, might as well aim it somewhere else rather than at viewers—like saying, “This game is such a piece of cr*p!” for example.

The reason I’m focusing more on Orca during the training with the second batch is this too.

Though an usually solid person, when they finally explode, it’s a whole different ball game, and in streaming, those moments are guaranteed to happen at least once.

Shall we discuss the other two members first?

Miho pretends to be part of the inner circle but in reality, she’s on the outskirts. When people around say something, she hunches down completely.

When chats get aggressive, she might say, “Ugh, don’t do that,” with a tiny voice.

Plus, Miho loves solving mysteries.

If we say, let’s think about which chats are trolling and why they’re sent, she’ll quickly figure out which are which!

But then, while thinking that way, time slips away, and not saying anything can come off as ignoring the situation altogether.

There might be more I don’t know, but nothing stands out that seems likely to cause issues when dealing with trolls right now.

Ena?

There’s hardly a need to even mention her.

I got to know her properly only after we met in a team for the Combative competition, where she managed to take on a heavy responsibility as the order without uttering a single complaint.

During that time, the chat?

The managers were keeping things in check, but combined with the chaotic dynamic of the competition and her main leadership role, it was pure madness.

If she failed to lead, the team would lose.

What’s more, they couldn’t keep points worth a dime.

Were Younggun and I meeting up secretly or what?

Whether we wrapped up the competition well or crashed and burned, it was genuinely troublesome.

The trolls were so bad they practically set up camp!

Since Ena managed to endure all of that, I’m not worried about her one bit.

Since she’s a reincarnated VTuber, there could be some trolls related to her past life, so I plan on monitoring that angle while letting things slide if it’s at a reasonable level.

Conversely, as mentioned, we really have to keep a close eye on Orca.

We need to catch her in the moment she gets genuinely angry to decide how best to manage her.

“The order will be Ena, Miho, then Orca. If one person’s feedback takes too long, it might push tomorrow’s schedule back. That’s why this training is set for the whole week. If we have time left, I’ll show video samples of what kinds of trolls appeared in past senior broadcasts and how they handled them.”

Not showing the video samples right away is because they could mimic what they see.

We want to see how the members react without any prior direction, so we proceed with as little groundwork as possible.

By the time I finished explaining, Ena shot her hand up high.

“But Jia, aren’t you taking the training too?”

“I can’t be the instructor and sit in as a student at the same time, can I?”

“I get that. But couldn’t you find someone to act as a troll?”

Her comment piqued Miho’s interest, and she giggled, “Should we volunteer?”

Seeing Ena nod agreeably makes Orca’s nod seem pretty normal.

Everyone seemed to want me to have troll experience too, so I put a condition on it.

“Well, watching how I respond can help in a way. Sure, let’s do that. But only after you’ve both finished your training and gone over the materials. If there’s time afterward, then we’ll go for it. In a way, it’s not much different than watching the response videos of the seniors.”

The three nodded enthusiastically.

Hmm.

After all, I’m not someone who gets upset easily.

But who knows?

Maybe becoming a troll myself would teach me something too.

Since my training is ordered by the president, if there’s a chance to develop the curriculum, it might be worthwhile to try everything possible.

I should hope the kids can finish their training early.

*

That afternoon, the second batch had prepped their content as requested by Majia for the lecture.

The theme was ‘Content they most want to conduct’ or ‘Content they enjoy the most.’

There’s nothing more irritating than the trolls that come with one’s favorite content, and since it’s content they like, that’s when they’re most likely to get hit hard and explode with emotion.

This time, an example would be Komari.

There’s nothing that triggers her fury more than the nasty chats that roll in when she plays her favorite game, Naore.

So what did Ena prepare?

[ Story Karaoke]

It’s a slight variation of her former content ‘Confessions’ when she was Serena.

Viewers submit stories, and she sings the appropriate songs in response.

Three individuals entered the makeshift chat room, each assuming their roles as regular chatters: Miho and Orca.

And the troublemaker was Majia.

In the case of a new VTuber, it’s common for them to struggle with managing the broadcast program and progressing through the content step by step, but thankfully since it’s Ena, the flow was incredibly smooth.

Since it was smooth, the regular chatters didn’t really show anything dramatic.

At best, they’d ‘dkg dkg’ while drumming or just say, “Yes,” or respond with “Ooo.”

However, the nasty chats were a different story.

— “Are you reincarnated?”

— “Definitely shows experience, nice and clean.”

As soon as Miho and Orca caught sight of that chat, they were aghast.

The two glanced at Majia, as if to ask, “Is this okay?” But today’s job for Majia was indeed just that.

Majia didn’t even glance at them as she continued with the next chat.

— “Answer!”

— “Can you not hear me?”

— “Strange, the saint always responded to these.”

Chat spam began pouring in.

Ena, glancing over at the chat, remained calm, so Majia turned up the heat a little more.

— “Looks like the escape depends on intelligence, haha.”

— “My friends are gone, but I survived, which is great!”

Miho stifled a gasp at that, while Orca began anxiously looking between Majia and Ena.

But this is the nature of the training.

Majia had warned in advance that she would show the worst of the trolls.

The purpose of this training is akin to a vaccine; just as it injects a virus to enhance immunity, it aims to develop immunity and the ability to cope with nasty chats.

Fortunately, Ena successfully passed Majia’s first test.

Normally, it’s a given to ignore any mention of a VTuber’s past life at all costs.

Others can respond to it, but in this case, it must be dismissed until the managers can handle it.

Most viewers are aware of the past life but follow an unspoken agreement to ignore it, so not reacting fits that situation.

Afterwards in Ena’s main segment, the singing based on submissions, Majia prompted again.

— “Seems like you’re singing better after coming out of prison!”

— “That company is a se^t!!!”

Again, Ena did not respond.

Exhibiting no interest in looking at the chat, she’d earn a solid 100/100 from me for that response.

Naturally, Majia nodded in approval and continued to jot related content on the evaluation sheet she had saved.

Ena continued to ace through the various challenges neatly.

Even when compared with her past self, she responded expertly.

— “Honestly, I prefer pink, haha.”

“Really? I do like strawberry flavor, but these days, I’m leaning a bit more towards vanilla. Coincidentally, my hair color is vanilla too. Wait, is this a coincidence…?”

She was strict about any ambiguity — in this case, saying she was banned is itself a mention of reincarnation, thus it must be left to the managers.

— “Serena.”

[Unblocking Request: I mistook the name, please forgive me!]

Finally, when asked to sing an original song that her former self released, she handled it neatly.

:: Anonymous Donator donated 1,000 clouds! ::

:: Will there be a plan to sing the Pure White Saint? ::

“I’m not currently taking song requests. Please send your requests to the official cafe when there’s specific content.”

She even made that remark with the understanding that the Parallel VTubers will filter requests in advance when they do karaoke, so it left a strong impression on Majia.

Truly, a prepared VTuber with great judgment.

Eventually, Ena’s assessment for handling trolls concluded with an A+.

A full report card stating that she could debut without any issues was completed.

Since this will go straight to Cheon Dohui, Ena will likely face little to no restrictions while streaming in the future.

This score far exceeded the previous highest score of B+ earned by Dora.

“Great job! Perfect response, nothing more to add.”

“Really? Thanks! Phew… But it really wasn’t easy. Even though I knew it was a simulation, I thought I’d lose my mind…”

“In real scenarios, it’ll be tougher than this. Nonetheless, you’ve passed for now.”

Well, that portion went as expected.

The issue lies ahead.

If Miho and Orca fail to score at least a B, they will have to repeat the same training until they do.

The troll-handling training is scheduled for a solid week, but if anyone receives a low score during evaluations, they’ll be slotted back into the curriculum.

Because of this, their debuts might be slightly delayed.

And, predictably, both of them have a high chance of scoring below a B.

After all, in the first group, aside from Dora who started off with a B+, everyone else landed at C+.

I suppose it wasn’t that Serena was exceptional, but rather that they were all just new to streaming back then, and that made it inevitable.

Had Serena been in her first broadcast this time around, the outcome wouldn’t have been much different.

So that afternoon, after lunch, it was Miho’s turn.

The content she chose was a full dubbing playthrough of a story game without any dubbing.

Since Miho has a bit of a background in voice acting, it seems she picked it thinking she’d do well in voice acting.

The game she selected was acknowledged for both its story and gameplay.

Truly a title worthy of being called the GOAT of its time.

But for Majia, it was just too delectable a target.

When playing a game recognized for its story, trolls like ‘story spoilers’ and ‘backseat gamers’ are bound to follow.

So while Miho introduced the game, Majia repetitively typed spoiler-y chats.

— “Absolutely don’t focus on the conversations between the protagonist and heroine!”

— “Absolutely don’t focus on the conversations between the protagonist and heroine!”

— “Absolutely don’t focus on the conversations between the protagonist and heroine!”

On one hand, it seems she was trying to prevent any spoilers from ruining the experience, but in reality, this also counts as a spoiler.

Knowing Miho loves solving puzzles, I thought she might blow up, but much as expected, responding took her quite a while, which led to a significant delay in the flow of the broadcast.

That itself was a sign of the contemplative state they were stuck in.

Majia quietly nodded her head.

If it ended just like this, Miho would likely score high, or so she thought.

But the situation that was expected to flow along naturally became quite the UFC instead as Miho suddenly muttered under her breath.

“……Those spoiler brats. d*mn spoiler brats. d*mn spoiler brats….”

What’s going on with her?

Scary!